AVR Programming in 64-bit Windows 7

A majority of the microcontroller programming I do these days involves writing C for the ATMEL AVR series of microcontrollers. I respect PIC, but I find the open/free atmosphere around AVR to be a little more supportive to individual, non-commercial cross-platform programmers like myself. With that being said, I’ve had a few bumps along the way getting unofficial AVR programmers to work in Windows 7. Previously, I had great success with a $11 (shipped) clone AVRISP-mkII programmer from fun4diy.com. It was the heart of a little AVR development board I made and grew to love (which had a drop-in chip slot and also a little breadboard all in one) seen in a few random blog posts over the years. Recently it began giving me trouble because, despite downloading and installing various drivers and packages, I couldn’t get it to work with Windows Vista or windows 7. I needed to find another option. I decided against the official programmer/software because the programmer is expensive (for a college student) and the software (AVR studio 6) is terribly bloated for LED-blink type applications. “AStudio61.exe” is 582.17 Mb. Are you kidding me? Half a gig to program a microchip with 2kb of memory? Rediculous. I don’t use arduino because I’m comfortable working in C and happy reading datasheets. Furthermore, I like programming chips hot off the press, without requiring a special boot loader.

I got everything running on Windows 7 x64 with the following:

• Programmer: USBTinyISP (eBay, $8.50 free shipping)___It’s a branch of an unofficial AvrISP-mkII project. Ladyada.net provides code, schematics, and even an option to buy a built-it-yourself kit for $~22 (+shipping) through adafruit. However I found them pre-assembled with SMT components for $8.48 shipped on eBay. _

• Drivers: Find them on the Ladyada page. (Free)__There are links at the top for 32-bit and 64-bit windows.

• Compiler Software: WinAvr (Free)__This is windows software. Linux users want a different flavor of AVR-GCC and should see my previous post on programming AVR in Ubuntu Linux

• Programming Software: AVRDudess (Free)__This is actually a GUI for AVRDude, a command line driven programmer. It has a great tutorial though. I accidentally keep thinking (and searching) for this program by the incorrect title AVRDudette.

Here’s the “hello world” of microchip programs (it simply blinks an LED). I’ll assume the audience of this page knows the basics of microcontroller programming, so I won’t go into the details. Just note that I’m using an ATMega48 and the LED is on pin 9 (PB6). This file is named “blink.c”.

#define F_CPU 1000000UL
#include <avr/io.h>
#include <util/delay.h>

int main (void)
{
    DDRB = 255;
    while(1)
    {
        PORTB ^= 255;
        _delay_ms(500);
    }
}

Here’s how I compiled the code:

avr-gcc -mmcu=atmega48 -Wall -Os -o blink.elf blink.c
avr-objcopy -j .text -j .data -O ihex blink.elf blink.hex

In reality, it is useful to put these commands in a text file and call them “compile.bat” Here’s how I program the AVR. I used AVRDudess! I’ve been using raw AVRDude for years. It’s a little rough around the edges, but this GUI interface is pretty convenient. I don’t even feel the need to include the command to program it from the command line! If I encourage nothing else by this post, I encourage (a) people to use and support AVRDudess, and (b) AVRDudess to continue developing itself as a product nearly all hobby AVR programmers will use. Thank you 21-year-old Zak Kemble.

And finally, the result. A blinking LED. Up and running programming AVR microcontrollers in 64-bit Windows 7 with an unofficial programmer, and never needing to install bloated AVR Studio software.